Driver Behavior VS Technology

September 24, 2014

Ignoring driver behavior in favor of technology is killing people according to an an editorial that is going viral on news websites. Leonard Evans, president of Science Serving Society writes that the US is failing in its efforts to prevent motor vehicle deaths because of its focus on the wrong area of automotive safety.

In his editorial, Dr. Evans cites the difference in traffic death rates between the US and other industrialized nations. Since the highest recorded highway death rates in 1972, the US traffic death rate has fallen by 41 percent however, during the same period, the Netherlands and Germany’s traffic fatality rates have fallen by 81 percent and Great Britain’s fell by 76 percent.

The difference between the US and the other top performing industrialized countries is the US reliance on technology to improve survival rates during a crash. Rather than relying on technology alone, the other top performing nations worked hard to prevent crashes altogether by changing driver behavior through a combined use of technology and enforcement of sensible traffic laws. Read more: U.S. traffic safety misleads the public